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The Florida Eels announce the signings of a number of extremely talented rookies to its USPHL Elite and Empire teams. On the Elite Team, we have Jeff O'Dea who joined us from Belle Tire. Jeff is a high end forward with a great skills set. He has shown the coaches at the USPHL Summer Showcase in Boston and during training camp for the past two week that he can put the puck in the net. Jeff is a very exciting player to watch and will fit in very nicely with the array of talented Eels on the roster. Brandon Halvorsen, a big D-Man from out west, joined us this year and made the Elite squad. Brandon is only a 1997 but he plays like a 2-year veteran. He is a steady defenseman who plays smart in all 3-zones. We love his drive determination and eagerness to learn. Brandon will develop very well with
the enormous depth already on the Elite Blueline. Coach Bloomingburg is very excited about these two rookies joining our returning veterans and new veterans who left other programs to come to the Eels as a vehicle to get them to college. The Eels have had a 100% placement of its available players to NCAA college teams over the last two years and it is well known that we offer a great venue as an outlet for achieving that goal.
On the Empire teamwe have two rookie goalies. Darryll Smith(TX) and Nolan Greene (MA). These two guys had big shoes to fill replacing last year's stellar goalie, Robert Henricksson (SWEDEN). From the looks of it from the training camp and this past weekend's games vs. the Atlanta Knights and the games vs. the University of Tampa, they are both ready willing and very able to do the job - Smith only allowing one goal in two games and Greene playing outstanding against the University of Tampa. We were impressed with their performances over the Spring and Summer Showcases in Colorado and Boston. These are truly two very good goalies.
On defense we have added 5 rookies on the blueline: Justin Klick, Alec Par, Charlie MacDonald, Jared Vetter and Brian Kozek. These are all very solid defenseman who show enormous poise and composure. They play with confidence and do not panic in tough situations. They all move the puck well and make good decisions in the D-Zone. These guys will no doubt ripen into very strong defenseman for the Eels.
Up front as forwards we added 7 rookies to the Empire team: Bryan Miller, Kyle Salminen, Travis Bruss, TJ Clingerman, Jordan Manning, Jordan Young, Zac Briscoe, and Gonzolo Ruiz. Like the Defenseman noted above we were impressed with what we saw in our scouting missions over the 14 showcases we attended. Moreover, we were more impressed with them at training camp. They all showed a strong work ethic and have very good skill set and are so determined and dedicated to improve their skills and the team's as well.
The key here is time and development. That is what the Eels program does best. Just look at the Elite team. So many of the top forwards and defenseman came up from the Empire team. The coaching staff does nothing short of a phenomenal job in developing young talent getting each one ready for the Next Level and ultimately to play NCAA College hockey.
These rookies join 8 Eels seasoned and experienced veterans who have backboned the Eels Empire team to their Florida Division playoff championship and to the league's Empire playoffs in New Jersey.
The Eels Empire Head Coach, Frankie Scarpaci, who was at the helm last season is very excited about this year's squad. He states emphatically that this year's squad is much deeper than last season's. We are so far ahead of last season at this early stage. Our defense is very strong and our forwards are 4 lines deep. We are very fortunate that the guys we recruited had the faith in us to come here and develop them to get to the Next Level. Coach Frankie said we will not loose sight of our mission, to develop each guy to his maximum potential. The Empire team has a phenomenal track record of developing players to move up and become the top players on our Elite squad. This year we also have a number of guys who went on to teams at NCAA colleges right from the Empire team. We have already started our recruitment with the colleges for these players.
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